The EU as a vehicle of ideational mobility : the extension of its normative power to the Baltics and the Balkans

This text analyses mobility (a cross-boundary transference of international norms by the EU) in two European regions: the Baltics and the Balkans. The exploration, thereby, suggests not only distinct perceptions of regionness in post-Cold War Europe, but also discerns the potential for export of Baltic best practice. The cases intuit that prescriptive mobility is occurring when the EU utilises its normative power through the enlargement process. However, even then its actorness is dependent upon: (a) committed research, signalled by (b) flexibility to accommodate particular conditions. The conjecture is that the relative success of Baltic cooperation could be explained through this (reputably) committed, yet flexible, agency of the EU; which was not the case in the Balkans. This has allowed the Baltics to better institutionalise promoted standards, which has intimated the capacity to export a model of (sub-) regional order.